"To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe."--Marilyn vos Savant

Every day I spend a few minutes watching Picasso paint. I recently discovered a 1956 French documentary during which Picasso uses colored pens to make drawings on translucent screens.

(To go to the movie, click on the movie camera at left and it will open in a new window.)

While it is a little frustrating to read English subtitles while trying to watch the picture unfold, it is worth the effort. And after a few minutes, the sound consists of merely musical accompaniment, which is very pleasing. The black and white drawing below is from the first segment of the film.

The Mystery of Picasso: Landmark Film of a Legendary Artist at Work, by Henri-Georges Clouzot

The slide show below was taken from the movie. It shows the development of a fairly simple painting which took Picasso five hours to create. In the film, the event is compressed into ten minutes and it offers a fascinating look at the process of the artist.

When I am not making art, I spend most of my time thinking about making art, looking at art, and researching art. In a lot of ways this keeps me from becoming stale. Just because something has worked for me in the past doesn't mean it will continue﻿ to be fruitful. As Picasso says, "Success is dangerous. One begins to copy oneself, and to copy oneself is more dangerous than to copy others. It leads to sterility."

I have seen my art change with my study of art. Yesterday, as I sketched on canvas a scene from a San Francisco street, I noticed that my drawing had some distinctly cubist influences. When laying out the perspective of the scene, I found myself thinking more in terms of space and planes than lines.

I will close today with some advice from B.F. Skinner, who said, "When you run into something interesting, drop everything else and study it." Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/search_results.html#PsAydV0HgobLdYKO.99